


Just a Toy Soldier

by K___Kelly



Series: The Creation of Caleb Widogast [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Caleb Widogast Deserves Nice Things, Caleb Widogast Has Issues, Caleb Widogast-centric, Character Study, Gen, I love my hobo wizard way too much, Light Angst, Musing, Self-Loathing Caleb Widogast, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22363018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K___Kelly/pseuds/K___Kelly
Summary: The Mighty Nein have radically reshaped Caleb's self-image
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Caleb Widogast
Series: The Creation of Caleb Widogast [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1609750
Comments: 6
Kudos: 154





	Just a Toy Soldier

There’s something he noticed about their recent trip to the spa, which was unfamiliar, but in no way unpleasant. It sets him on a careful path of reflection. Before he’d met the other members of the Mighty Nein Caleb would not have considered spending any amount of time doing something so useless. Activities without purpose have been a foreign concept since…since childhood and even then he had grown up in a rural farming village. Young boys who were idle were frowned upon, even if they were too skinny and clumsy to be of much use to anyone. That was why his entry to the academy was _everything_. He seized the opportunity like a lifeline. Finally, he’d be of use, finally he'd have a purpose. He didn’t learn until it was too late how dangerous it is to define yourself by purpose alone. 

Every day at the academy was rigorous he and the two other children from his town were years behind their peers. They had to work twice as hard and twice as long to even catch up to the other students. So then, when he _exceeded_ every expectation, and earned the admiration of teacher and student alike it was a feeling he wanted to hold onto indefinitely. He clung to that unfamiliar satisfaction. It was fulfilling, he let it define him, consume him, drive him. Oh, and it drove him alright, right off the edge, or at least nearly. He had been young and impossibly stupid. And desperate, so desperate to serve, to be useful, to be used. A thing that is used, has use, and the proof of its existence and necessity is found solely in its potential to continue being useful. A vicious cycle of desire that he had fed endlessly. His thirst for knowledge had been outweighed, overshadowed, by his intense need to be pleasing. To line up, stand up straight, bow his head, and nod yes to whatever was asked of him. To take any hand extended to him without asking questions. And he remembers dragging the others down with him. They had all wanted to be of use but the boy who was Bren had wanted to be _used_. To be held over the fire and melted down to his basest components. Remade into something sharp enough to draw blood from the enemies of the Empire. 

He shudders remembering his blind devotion. How he had been wielded and molded into the assembly’s vision of a perfect _little soldier_. That is until they played too hard. Until the man he had called master and trusted above all else had seemingly forgotten that Bren’s base composition had not changed, he was still made of pliable, _breakable_ tin. He was a lesser thing easily tossed aside even after being reduced to its purest form, ultimately useless. They locked him away to rust and rot and never expected to see or hear from him ever again. No. He defied their expectations again. And now he is surrounded with people who have begun to fundamentally reshape the value of his _life_. They valued it for him before he had begun to take the steps to re-learn how to live and define his life. 

The first time Jester healed him she didn’t have to. There was nothing they needed from him that required him to be at full health, but she reached out and healed him anyway.

**_“Of course, I’ll heal you Cayyyleb don’t be stupid.”_ **

Her touch had been so gentle and warm, and it had been years since he had allowed someone to touch him without involuntarily flinching away. She was the first.

And the second time Beau took a hit for him he had been completely stunned. The first time it had happened he was sure it had been an accident. She just took the damage like a champ and never said a word about it. The second time though, her follow-up assured him of her intentions.

**_“Hey man are you even gonna thank me? You know I only caught the first one, that spear thing ended up in my fucking thigh.”_ **

He smiles a bit at the memory, she had been so incredulous and yet simultaneously disgusted.

**_“I-I did not I-I could not uh assume that you would do that for me willingly…but of course I am very grateful to you…”_ **

She had slapped him across the back, hard. A painfully affirming gesture. 

**_“Whatever man, it’s not a big deal or anything”_ **

Scheisse Beau, she has also done wonders for him in ways she would be loath to admit. 

Nott had been trying to convince him that he was worth feeding and washing and caring for, for many months before they met the others. He is grateful to her every day; her insistent care kept him alive. It was not _her_ fault that her love alone was not enough to break through his own skewed self-image. 

**_“Caleb you have to eat, if you’re not eating I won’t eat either.”_ **

**_“Nott please be reasonable…”_ **

**_“I am reasonable! You’re my boy and I won’t let you die. I care about you, so you’re not allowed to give up.”_ **

It was not her fault, and slowly he is learning that it was not _his_ fault either…

But Fjord though…honestly he had believed that Fjord hated him. That is until they had made their foolish blood pact hundreds of leagues below the ocean. Foolhardy? Perhaps. Genuine? Worthwhile? Most certainly. 

**_“We understand each other”_ **

**_“Ja and I will be counting on you”_ **

**_“Me as well.”_ **

They have each in their own way helped reform him into his own shape. A new shape that is not bent to the will of the Empire nor to his own crippling need to be useful. He is no longer masquerading as Caleb Widogast, they are the ones who gave the new name weight and meaning,..especially Molly. Oh, Mollymauk Tealeaf somehow he always managed to speak to him and treat him in a way that never made him feel like he was a broken thing. Molly held expectations that Caleb had wanted to meet, because behind all of the peacocking and grandstanding was a truly good person with shining intentions. 

**_“Mr. Caleb”_ **

**_“Mr. Mollymauk”_ **

**_“I know you’re not all right now, but I am certain that you will be, it’s in the cards you know…and of course I can give you a deeper reading if you’d like the details.”_ **

**_“Your assurance is more than enough.”_ **

Caduceus is an assuring presence in his own way, but he still feels like he does not know the firbolg nearly as well as he would like to. His integration into their rowdy band of misfits had been seamless and he owed him his life on multiple occasions both on and off the battlefield. He spoke too kindly about growth and always tried to reassure him that he is in the right place at the right time. 

**_“This is a garden. This is a good garden. A lot of manure. But a good garden.”_ **

He had not known how to respond, his instinct was to shift the conversation away from himself and back to the problem at hand. Caduceus had nodded with that knowing look in his eyes, he could tell that even without a full response that his words had taken root. 

Yasha was in some ways a mirror image, in learning to trust each other they begin to trust themselves again.

**_“Are you ready?”_ **

He remembers holding his breath and standing stock still as she gently ran the deadly edge of Magician’s Judge along his jawline.

**_“Ja I trust you”_ **

He is shaken out of his thoughts by the combined voices of Jester calling up the stairs of the Xhorhouse and Nott sending a message across the wire the way he had taught her.

“Cayleb? Are you ready? Do you need anything? Did you change your clothes are you changing right now?”

“Caleb? We’re ready to go to the palace.”

The quick successive questions are followed by a familiar knock.

“I am coming Jester, and yes I am fully dressed.” He fumbles with the wire as the door bursts open.

“Okay I was just checking, also I super love what you did with Fjord’s clothes, The Traveler approves.”

“CALEB GET THIS SEEMING OFF OF ME RIGHT NOW.”

Jester giggles and he just basks in the moment of chaotic normality. This is the exact kind of ‘normal’ that he has freely chosen to embrace wholeheartedly.

“Ah why would you assume it was me?”

He wouldn’t trade Fjord’s subsequent spluttering sounds or Jester’s shit eating grin or the shrill voice coming across a magic wire for anything, _anything_ in the world. 


End file.
